‘The Amazing Spiderman’ untold story screening event

Thanks to Sony Pictures Australia we were lucky to attend one of ‘The Amazing Spiderman’ screening events that took place in Sydney.

Sydney was the only Australian city to be included in the worldwide event that included 13 other major cities and Sony showed off the new trailer in 3D as well as a thirty minute sequence of different footage of the film.

Hit the jump to find out what happened.

The first thing we were shown was the new trailer that you can watch below.

It looked amazing on the big screen and the action was absolutely breathtaking. The new trailer also signals a move away from the ‘emo’ Spiderman that was evident in the first trailer, and we get to see the smart-arse side of Peter Parker. There is also a heavy emphasis on Spiderman as a vigilante being hunted by the police that feels a little ripped from Nolan’s Batman films. Usually, Spiderman is on trial by the media courtesy of local newspaper editor Jonah J. Jameson, but it’s still unknown as to whether the character will appear in the new film.

It was interesting seeing the trailer in 3D but I wasn’t completely sold. I felt a little cross-eyed during the fast paced scenes and it did nothing to make the film standout as a must see 3D release.

After the trailer was shown the director of ‘The Amazing Spiderman’, Marc Webb, appeared to introduce the new footage with a disclaimer that the film was still in post and a lot of the special effects were unfinished. During the footage there were lots of green screens, rough animations and wires hanging off actors and stuntmen, but in no way did it damage the impact. What was really interesting was how much real stunt work Andrew Garfield was doing playing Spiderman.

So what was shown?

WARNING THERE MAY BE SPOILERS
I’m not going to go into too much detail because there actually wasn’t that much new footage shown. It was a lot of the trailer with a few extended scenes thrown in to give a sense of who the characters were. Of those scenes the best were…

– A great scene between Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) where Peter gets lectured on the virtues of walking away from a fight after getting into a brawl with the school bully Flash Thompson. The “with great power” line wasn’t delivered but you could feel it bubbling away in the dialogue and it was implied that the consequences of Peter’s actions may lead to the fate of Uncle Ben.

– After the Uncle Ben scene it led straight into the introduction of Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) and we got to see a bit of awkward teen romance that’s sure to be the heart of the film. If you know your Spiderman comics, Gwen plays a big role in Spiderman’s origin and if this storyline is handled properly it could be a real tearjerker.

– Once the character stuff was over we got to see a montage of extended scenes from the trailer including Peter in a room filled with radioactive spiders and inventing his web-shooters, plus taunting criminals with his new powers while evading the police and cracking a few jokes. The humour is the biggest difference in the tone of the film to Sam Raimi’s films and very in tune with the Spiderman comics.

– Soon it was time to meet the bad guy and Kurt Conners (Rhys Ifans) was introduced as a scientist who worked with Peter’s parents. We got to see Peter reading documents from his father’s satchel given to him by his aunt and uncle. After finding a photo of Conners, Peter tracks him down and we get a glimpse of how they influence each other, and how that leads to Conners transforming into a lizard like creature that rampages New York. The Lizard was kept in the shadows and there wasn’t any extended scenes involving the character.

So with the new trailer and extended footage it’s safe to say that ‘The Amazing Spiderman’ has shelved any doubts I had about the reboot. It feels totally separate to the Sam Raimi films and looks to delve even deeper into the Spiderman universe.

‘The Amazing Spiderman’ is one of the must see films and my spidey sense will be tingling until July…I wonder if they have a cream for that?

‘The Amazing Spiderman’ is released on 4 July 2012.

A big thank you to Sony Pictures Australia for putting on the event and inviting The Popcorn Junkie.